


Riot in the heart

by silentstreets



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Alternate Universe, Boys Kissing, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentstreets/pseuds/silentstreets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ari sells flowers and Dante is a cute regular and Ari has a crush and Dante has a crush and much fluff ensues</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riot in the heart

**Author's Note:**

> I had the first two pages or so of this sitting in my drafts for absolutely ages and I just decided it was time to finish it once and for all. This comes from a list of prompts I found on tumblr ages ago and printed off so unfortunately I don't have a link, sorry! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated x

I ducked behind the display of roses as he walked past again. Him. The guy who had been buying flowers from our stall almost every single day for the past month. I had no clue who he was buying them for, because I always pretended to be very busy with making the display of bouquets immaculate, scrubbing down the already clean counter until it was spotless, counting and recounting the coins behind the register while Ana served him and made friendly chit-chat. He was gorgeous, I hardly spoke English, and I had a massive crush on him. Also, judging by the sheer amount of flowers he bought, I assumed he had a lover. Every Wednesday, just as the sun was beginning to set and the evening time rush hour began, he would pop into our stall and buy a bunch of flowers, then head off down the road and disappear around the block. Sometimes, if it was raining, he’d hail a cab. But usually he’d walk, flowers in his arms, the evening sun haloing him in a golden light. 

I wasn’t used to the way of life New Yorkers seemed to lead. I’d moved not long ago from a rural town in Mexico and could barely understand the language, let alone the customs, of these people. Always in a rush. Always somewhere to go. But I didn’t mind it. I liked having the freedom that came with a lack of understanding - I could make up stories about the people that I watched come and go. Everything was so new to me, so bright and large, that I didn’t feel like an outsider at all. The girl who ran the stall, Ana, spoke some Spanish, and she had introduced me to some people who could understand my mix of Spanish and English. Slowly, I had caught on to the language, and now, though I still struggled to speak it, I could hold a conversation.

 On a particularly stuffy day, my favourite customer came running down the street, and didn’t pause to buy flowers. Ana noticed this too, and called after him.

“ _Señor_ , aren’t you going to buy your flowers today?” she had a friendly smile on her face.

He paused. 

Turned back.

“Not today. _Lo siento_. I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow.”

I didn’t hear much else of the conversation because my head was pounding with the realisation of _he speaks Spanish_! Had I not noticed the slight lilt in his speech that all Spanish speakers seemed to have? 

I felt rejuvenated suddenly, ridiculously so. I was in with a chance of… what? He obviously had someone. Still, I supposed that even being his friend would be better than nothing. I resolved to speak to him the next time he came by. 

“How did you know he spoke Spanish?” I quizzed Ana while we closed up the shop and went for our lunch break. We timed it just so, going to rest about an hour after the rest of the city. Rarely did anyone pass by our small flower stall after two in the afternoon. In fact, we probably could have stayed closed until the rush hour at the end of the day. The street was a narrow one, mostly residential. But it was perpendicular to two main roads, so it got busy once more towards the end of the day.

“Oh, he’s a friend of a family friend. I met him at some birthday party once maybe three years ago. I just remember his face.”

“Do you know his name?” I asked, hoping the tremor in my hands wouldn’t show. Hiding it by picking up a watering can. 

“Yeah, it’s Dante,” then she smiled at me knowingly. “Why are you so interested all of a sudden?”  


“Oh… you know… no reason. Just nice to hear a familiar language.” 

“Mhm, sure,” she said, nodding. “I can get a good word in for you. My aunt knows his mother.”

 “Oh no, don’t do that. He’s got someone, hasn’t he? A lover?”

She laughed. “Dante? Lover? Don’t be stupid. He’s been single for so long I doubt he remembers how to work his dick anymore.”  


I was stumped. “Then who are the flowers for? Who buys so many flowers if not for a girlfriend?”

Ana giggled once again. “Dante? Girlfriend?”  


I was starting to get kind of annoyed by this point. Did she have to turn everything into a question?

“Ari, he’s as gay as the sky is blue. I don’t know what the flowers are for. I guess he just likes the way they look.”

I was positively swooning by this point. He spoke Spanish. He bought flowers with the same devotion a religious man would show by going to church every Sunday. He didn’t have a lover, and, most importantly, he was gay.

“Let me serve him next time. Please?”

She nodded, and turned to a customer who’d just walked up. “Good afternoon sir, can I help you with anything?”  
  
I turned away, looking down the road he had disappeared five minutes earlier. Him. _Dante_. He had a name now. Dante. A poet. A writer and a creator. A name meaning strength.

***

It was an entire week before our paths crossed again. I spent the whole week riled up and anxious, dying to see him again now that I knew that he was single and Spanish speaking and interested in _guys._ I even started getting up a little earlier to make sure I looked presentable in case he happened to pop by for his flowers. But day after day passed, and still there was no sign of him. 

Eventually, though, he showed up, and I almost tripped over my feet in my eagerness to help him out. I was taking his payment at the register when I made eye-contact with Ana and she shot me a wink. I glared at her, then redirected my attention to the beautiful man standing in front of me. It was time, I decided. Time to make conversation.

“So, you speak Spanish?” 

He looked surprised at this question, and no doubt why, because it was a goddamn stupid one. I was worried he’d think I was a massive idiot till he flashed me a smile and bounced once on the balls of his feet. 

“A little. I’m not very good. My father speaks it, so I can understand it but my speech is questionable at best. Do you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I moved here from Mexico not long ago. Just over a year ago, actually.”

“Oh right, that’s cool! You speak very good English.”

“Do I really?” I could feel the tips of my ears turning pink. No one had ever told me that before. But then again, I didn’t speak to many people in English. 

“Yeah, I thought you’d been living here for years,” his smile was welcoming and lively, brighter than the early morning sun that streamed through the curtains on my bedroom window.  

“Thank you,” I told him, passing him his change.

He held his palm out so I could drop the coins into his hand. Our fingers brushed and in the cold Autumn evening his fingers were warmer than a fire. The clink of the coins _one-two-three_ was all I could hear for a moment. They drowned out the sound of the traffic and for a moment I felt like it was just the two of us alone in the universe. And then he was saying goodbye, waving, turning and leaving, and I was overwhelmed with just this tiny interaction that had lasted barely three minutes.  

I turned it over in my head for the next week, committing every tiny detail to memory. The red of his jumper, the single curl that fell over his forehead, the tiny hole in the left pocket of his blue jeans. The way his sweater rode up above the waistband of his jeans when he leant over the counter to pass me the money.  

It took almost another month of making smalltalk over the counter before I decided it was time to do _something_. I hadn’t really planned anything, just hoped that at the time I would come up with something clever and we’d end up catching up over the weekend or something, and that would lead to spending more time together, which would lead to a date, which would lead to kissing - _I wanted to kiss him so much_ \- which would lead to sex and marriage and… It was stupid. It was nothing more than a crush, but I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this beautiful man who loved flowers and poetry and art and the rain.

But then there he was, standing in front of me in ripped jeans and a loose grey sweater, twisting his hands nervously and asking me if maybe I wanted to go for coffee tomorrow morning? And of course _yes, I would love to_ was my response.  

***

The first time we kissed was late at night at his apartment. We were sitting on the couch watching a movie. I don’t think either of us were really paying attention to it. I leant my head against his shoulder because I was tired, and he’d moved away. I panicked, thinking that maybe I’d got too close and made him uncomfortable. He didn’t respond for a moment. The sound of the television seemed to fade away, and I swear I could hear the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears. I stared straight ahead, not wanting to make eye contact. 

“Ari,” he whispered, “Ari, look at me.”

From his mouth, my name sounded like music, poured from his lips smooth as honey. I turned to face him slowly, dragging my eyes slowly from his chest to his chin to his nose to his eyes. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, his voice the softest thing I’d ever heard. 

When I nodded, he leaned in so very slowly, pausing less than an inch from my face, his breath ghosting across my open lips. I felt like I was drowning in his eyes, and when finally he kissed me it felt like he’d pulled me back to the surface and suddenly I was _alive_ again. The tip of his nose was cold against my face but I didn’t mind because, _oh my god_ , I was kissing Dante Quintana and it was wonderful. 

He pulled back for a moment to catch his breath and his cheeks were rosy and his lips were flushed. 

“Dante,” I breathed, and rested my hand on the back of his neck to reel him back in. 

The short hairs at his nape were soft and bristly. His hand came to rest on my chest, curled into a loose fist around the cotton of my t-shirt. He sighed softly, and the sound drew me in and I leant closer, pressing our bodies together and closing any remaining space between us, Dante’s hand now flat between our chests.

That first kiss led to another, and then many more to follow. Loving Dante was a whole-body experience. It wasn’t something I felt only in my heart. I felt it in the warmth of his hands on my cheeks, the fluttering in my stomach when he laughed, the curl in his lips when he smiled as he kissed me. 

 

 


End file.
